The Virgin Years: 1977-1983

Superb box set from the tangs pioneers in electronic music ,great value for 5 discs ,a great companion to the hades set ,recommended

Classic collection of Tangerine Dreams late seventies / early eighties album output. Nice set for those wanting to immerse themselves in peak period Tangerine Dream.

This collection see's Tangerine Dream begin a slow descent from their heady early days as leading exponents of the groundbreaking Krautrock era into a more sanitized & structured approach.This in no way means that the albums on offer here are poor, far from it, they just don't carry on the outstanding pattern of jazz-like free flowing, at times almost ambient, electronica they offered their fans before.`Encore' is an appropriate intro. To the set. Still interesting & full of enjoyable moments, it lacks the spontaneity & mystery of previous live sets and at times feels a little forced.The studio albums are a mixed bunch but all contain some great tracks and as a whole it has to be said that the amount of top e-music on offer for such a low price makes this fantastic value for money.The sound quality is very good, these having been remastered previously, and we are spared any cringe worthy `re-imaginings'!For the enthusiast this will contain little of value. No doubt you'll not want to trade the warm sound and friendly clicks & pops that your old vinyl wraps you in.For the newcomer I would have to say that really the previous setThe Virgin Years: 1974-1978 is the place to start. The historical value & standard of innovation and sheer musical scale make the early albums the best.If you already have one or two of the early albums or just a few in total then I reckon that both collections are worth the investment and why not go the whole hog and get Edgar FroeseSolo [1974-1983] The Virgin Years. That too has some great tracks.While this see's a distinctly commercial edge of easy to follow tunes, click tracks and the odd filler, this is still a mighty collection. Part 1 of Dominion, Tangram & Remote viewing are amongst the best of any collection. The Few 'single' tracks included are a bit odd but it's nice to have them here nonetheless.There are also a small collection of Virgin TD soundtracks that would be nice to have collected too but copyright issues may play a big part in preventing that.If you enjoy this then you might also give the excellent live set 'Poland' a listen. A last hurrah from TD before heading off to Atari programming & the god awful linn drum obsession that became the fashion in the nineties.Despite certain band members best efforts to tarnish the TD name with naff TV soundtracks and appalling reworkings and a whole raft of elevator music albums, the huge influence, imagination and sheer musical enjoyment Tangerine Dream brought to so many of their early albums forever see's them as a name to be respected and their music as a joy to listen to for fans of e-music the world over.

This is a great box set of seven of Tangerine Dream's albums spread over 5 CDs. I've only ever had these albums on some TDK cassettes that my friend had recorded for me off his LPs when we were at 6th Form college in 1984 still got them but I thought I'd treat myself and it was like going back through a time warp to a happier time, friends did that back then, streaming hadn't been invented and money was tight. They are still as great to listen to today and really are some of their best albums which is saying something seeing as they have done over 100 studio, live and soundtrack albums in their 51 year history. An excellent introduction to Tangerine Dream if you are new to them, highly recommended by a long time fan of theirs and was lucky enough to see 3 of the original line up in concert.

This set deserves five stars despite some weaker material on some of the later albums and the vagaries of Virgin/EMI in including the magnificent Encore in this collection rather than where it belongs, in the 74-78 Baumann era box set; logically the under-rated Cyclone should have kicked off this collection. Otherwise all the later Vigin albums bar the film soundtrack Thief are included in full. There is some excellent material here, especially the Force Majeure album and Tangram, which for me is the last truly classic album TD ever made. I bought this set because I'd never previously bothered to upgrade my vinyl copies of Exit, White Eagle and Hyperborea which all have their moments but also contain tracks which are far below the pre-1981 standard and presage the depressing decline once Chris Franke left the band. Who else is going to find this a bargain? Newcomers to TD should go for this without hesitation. Some might want to go for it for the "singles"- ie: a slightly tweaked version of part of Monolight, and two edits from Thief, but be warned "Hobo March" is not really TD at all- it's actually Ode to Granny A, one of the worst cuts from Edgar Froese's patchy solo album Ages. If you've already got all the "definitive edition" albums, however, I'm not sure you'd be gaining much, even for twelve quid.

A good value set containing some classic albums. Ideal for someone just getting into Tangerine Dream (as I was when I got this, quite a while ago now!). I've really enjoyed discovering their music and if you get this set and the previous one, you have an instant mini-collection of some of their very best work. From this set I think my favourites are 'Force Majeure' and 'Hyperborea'. Really though, any TD album from this period can make an ideal soundtrack for reading/studying/writing/relaxing, but is also worth consciously listening to for its own sake. Though the musical ingredients here are simple-seeming, the more you listen the more you hear.

My first introduction to Tangerine Dream was my purchase of a 10 disc box set which turned out to be quite frankly dire and well worth avoiding. This, on the other hand, saved the day for Tangerine Dream as far as I'm concerned. I really enjoyed the music which was how I imagined Tangerine Dream should sound like and it's catchy enough to able to play over and over again without it getting on your nerves. Well worth buying and well worthy listening to.